Sunday, March 13, 2011

Spiritual Cleansing on a Budget

In recent weeks I have wanted to implement regular spiritual cleansing, usually on the weekend backed up with minor cleansings during the week. Part of my reason for this is that, as a magical practitioner it's very wise to maintain good spiritual hygeine. The other part of my reason is that I'm still suffering under my crossed condition, and so far it seems like spiritual cleansings help combat the symptoms and weaken the condition itself.

Unfortunately, I have been delayed in obtaining the specific herbs I want to use for my uncrossing and for spiritual cleansing in general. Mostly it has been due to budgetary concerns. However, with a perusal of Devi Spring'slist of bare-minimum materials for spiritual cleansing, and then a cross-checking with cat yronwode's "Hoodoo Herb & Root Magic", I found materials that can be obtained at a local supermarket. Because of this, I made a 3-ingredient spiritual cleansing bath:

Add to a pitcher of warm water...

1 tbsp salt

1/2 tsp ammonia

4-5 drops liquid blueing (or 1/2 blueing ball or square)

Salt being a spiritual cleanser came as no surprise to me. Even since my days as a Wiccan, I've always known it to be a cleanser and protector par excellance.

Since learning some Hoodoo in my pursuit of sorcery, I learned that Ammonia is a very powerful spiritual cleanser. In its case, less is often more and a little goes a long way. Most sources I've encountered caution against using more than 1 tbsp per gallon of water for spiritual cleansing purposes. Also, most sources I've found cite the reason for this being that ammonia is such a powerful cleanser that if you use too much it won't just cleanse away the bad, but the good as well.

Before delving into Hoodoo, I had never heard of blueing, a laundry chemical used to whiten white fabric. And then one day at a local supermarket, lo and behold, I found a bottle of liquid blueing. Apparently it is also used as a spiritual cleanser, but it has more of a leaning toward bringing in positive influences. Thus, it is also used in blessing.

I was able to get all three of these supplies for less than $10!

When using the above spiritual bath, I charged it beforehand. In Hoodoo, one would have prayed fervently over it once the materials were mixed into the water. But I go with Jason's method of touching on each of the three levels: The Empyrian (divine), the Aetheric (energetic/astral), and the Material.

In this case, I began by making the Triangle of Manifestation gesture over the pitcher. Then, reciting an invocation to Helios and Hecate from Jason's book "Protection & Reversal Magic", I imagined and willed cleansing energy into the gesture, seeing it "zap" into the bath water as I finished the invocation. Thus, by praying and adding energy to the materials, I touched on each level!

Then, of course, I went to the bathtub and used the cleansing bath! Instead of the traditional route of taking some of the water to a crossroads afterward, I let it all wash down the drain. It seems that can be used in a pinch, and to me it makes sense. When you take the water to a crossroads, you are essentially giving what you washed off over to the chthonic powers. But to me, the concept of the water and what it washed off being poured into the dark and deep of underground pipes speaks just as well of giving it over to those chthonic powers.

About Me

Having reformed my magical practices from an ineffective and weak pseudo-magician into a worker of effective sorcery, in this blog I talk about a variety of related topics. My path is an eclectic mixture of Inominandum's Strategic Sorcery, Hermeticism, and folk magic, and you'll find discussion of my methods, my POV on various topics in magic, and a journal of my successes and failures.